John Labern, a once popular, but now forgotten music-hall artiste, and song-writer, issued several collections of the songs of the day. It is from one of these that "The Cadger's Ball" is taken. _"Dear Bill, This Stone-Jug"_ The state of affairs described in this poem is now happily a thing of the past. Newgate, as a prison, has almost ceased to be. Only when the Courts are sitting do its functions commence, and then there is constant coming and going between the old city gaol and the real London prison of to-day, Holloway Castle. _The Leary Man_ _The Vulgar Tongue_, by Ducarge Anglicus, is, as a glossary, of no account whatever; the only thing not pilfered from Brandon's _Poverty, Mendicity, and Crime_ being this song. Where that came from deponent knoweth not. _A Hundred Stretches Hence_ _The Rogue's Lexicon_, mainly reprinted from Grose's _Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue_, is of permanent interest and value to the philologist and student for the many curious survivals of, and strange shades of meaning occurring in, slang words and colloquilisms after transplantation to the States. G. W. Matsell was for a time the chief of the New York police. _The Chickaleary Cove_ Vance, a music-hall singer and composer in the sixties, made his first great hit in _Jolly Dogs; or Slap-bang! here we are again_. This was followed by _The Chickaleary Cove_: a classic in its way. _'Arry at a Political Picnic_ The 'Arry Ballads' are too fresh in public memory to need extensive quotation. The example given is a fair sample of the series; which, taken as a whole, very cleverly "hit off" the idiosyncrasies and foibles of the London larrikin. Stanza VIII, line 4. _Walker_ = Be off! _"Rum Coves that Relieve us"_ Heinrich Baumann, the author of _Londonism en_, an English-German glossary of cant and slang, to which "Rum Coves that Relieve us" forms the preface. _Villon's Good Night_ _Villon's Straight Tip_ and _Culture in the Slums_